Fritzgartner, Lura Frances (Owen) 1875 - 1944

FRITZGARTNER, OWEN, BRAUCHT

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 1/7/2024 at 12:47:22

Clayton County Register, 16 Mar. 1944.

Funeral services for Mrs. Lura Fritzgartner, 69, were held at the Witt funeral chapel here at 2 o'clock Monday afternoon, March 13, the Rev. Paul Kitterer officiating. Burial was in the East Side cemetery. Death occurred at the home of her brother-in-law and sister, Dr. and Mrs. F. E. Braucht, on her birthday anniversary, March 11, 1944.

Lura Frances (Owen) Fritzgartner was born March 11, 1875, at Hastings, Mich., the daughter of Dudley A. and Sarah A. Owen. She lived in Hastings until the spring of 1889, when the family moved to Battle Creek, Mich. In the spring of 1894, with her parents and younger brother, she sailed from San Francisco, Calif. for the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. Within the next year her mother died and in August her brother-in-law and sister, Dr. and Mrs. F. E. Braucht, arrived on the Cook Isles on their way to their field of labor in the Navigator or Samoan Islands. Mr. Owen and the two children accompanied the doctor and his group.

After two years in Samoa, Mrs. Fritzgartner returned to the United States to continue her education in the public schools of Battle Creek, Mich., and Battle Creek college. In the fall of 1899, she entered the University of Michigan department of dentistry, graduating in the spring of 1902, with the degree of D.D.S. Shortly after her graduation she left the United States to join her brother, Herbert A. Owen, in Honduras to follow her chosen profession. Here she met Rheinhold Fritzgartner, a doctor of science and civil engineering and a graduate of Heidelberg university. They were married in the fall of 1905 and made their home in Tegneigalpa, Honduras, where she remained until the spring of 1928, when she came to Elkader to assist in the care of her aged father, who was making his home with Dr. and Mrs. Braucht. Dr. Fritzgartner remained with Dr. and Mrs. Braucht until her death.

She is survived by one sister, Mrs. F. E. Braucht of Elkader, and two brothers, Herbert A. Owen in Honduras and Will Owen of Hollywood, Calif., and several nieces and nephews.

Pallbearers were H. J. Conrad, L. D. Dittmer, Thomas Garaghty and William J. Witt.